Modern story of Eragon
by Agnie
Summary: Have you ever wondered what would the life of Eragon and his friends look like if they lived in the 21th century? How would the relationships between them develop? This is my version of their story... DISCLAIMER: I'm not Christopher Paolini so I don't own these genius characters (although I wish I did)!
1. Chapter 1

**Hi! This is just a story which I came up with when I was bored but I decided to publish it anyway ;) It's the first longer story which I wrote in English so there may be some mistakes but I hope that at least some of you will like it :) This is just the first chapter so it's pretty short**

 **Crunchie cookie girl**

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I really loved vacations. And more precisely – the beginning of each day. Really. You open your eyes and the first thing you realize is that you don't have to go to school and your mom wouldn't run into the room, shouting at you because you're late again and nobody would try to get you out of bed…

"Eragon, wake up!"

Except that was exactly what my sister Saphira was doing right now, standing by my bed and screaming her head off.

"Saphi, please…" I tried to mollify her. Not very successfully.

"What 'Saphi'? What? Don't 'Saphi' me!" she said, sounding offended.

"I have vacations…"

"You can as well have. It's fine by me" she cut me off again. "But vacations or not, you can't sleep all day long"

"But it's like eight" I protested.

Saphira snorted with obvious pitifulness.

"It's noon already" she informed me. "And we have a meeting with the rest of the gang in an hour, so you'd better hurry"

I really wasn't in the mood to get up. And it really couldn't be that late. So I covered my head with the blanket and turned around, so that I was facing the wall, trying to get a few more minutes of sleep. Unfortunately, Saphira didn't seem to be giving up that easily. With one swift move she took the blanket from me. I groaned and very slowly and lazily opened one eye. She was standing here with my blanket in hand and usual mocking half-smile on her face. I sat up and she threw the blanket back at me.

"I hate you" I announced when I finally managed to remove the blanket from my head.

She was already by the door and she turned around with a grin on her face.

"Sleep or lack of sleep, you still love me" she said, winking.

I threw the first thing which came in hand (which just happened to be my pillow) at her although I knew that I wouldn't manage to hit her. I was right – the pillow bounced off the door and landed on the floor. I picked it up and glanced at the clock. It showed 12:03 which apparently meant that Saphira was right. And that we really had very little time left to get ready for the meeting. I quickly jumped to my wardrobe, pushed the door open and grabbed the first set of clothes I could find. A minute later I was already running down the stairs.

The house was pretty silent which was quite unusual. Mom must have already left to her office. She was working as an architect and had her own small company. And a lot of work. Always a lot of work. And our dad, who was a sailor, came home once per three months. That was probably why both Saphira and I learnt to take responsibility for ourselves a long time ago and we were doing just fine. And that was probably why there was such a strong bond between us. Even if it may seem funny, I would really call Saphira my best friend. She was a good older sister. We hardly ever argued (not counting squabbling over the choice of a movie to watch in the evening) and she even helped me with mathematics which I didn't understand at all. And no matter what anyone was thinking, I preferred it this way.

I exactly knew where I would find Saphira probably due to a very tasty smell coming from the kitchen. I was right – she was standing in front of the cooker, frying pancakes. She was certainly in a good mood, singing something under her breath.

"Excited before the meeting with Thorn?" I teased her.

I was referring to one of our friends who Saphira had a crush on. Of course it wasn't like she was going to admit it. I had nothing against Thorn, I really liked him, maybe slightly less his hair colour – he decided to dye it red and even if Saphira thought it looked cool, I didn't. Nevertheless, my teasing was rather an act of revenge for the incident with the blanket.

She shrugged and murmured something which very suspiciously sounded like 'idiot'.

"I don't know what you're talking about' she said. "If you want more romance in your life, find yourself a girlfriend or buy a good romantic novel rather than try to act like a matchmaker for everyone around you. Or make us a coffee."

I shook my head at the unexpected change of subject. If there was something Saphira was particularly good at it was with no doubt being sarcastic.

"I was serious" she said from the cooker. "Start with this coffee already or you won't get any pancakes"

"Oh, you wouldn't…"

"You know I would" she cut me off. "Now hurry up"

Murmuring some not very flattering things I opened the cupboard and took out two mugs. But before I could even start with the coffee, Saphira interrupted me.

"What time is it?"

I looked at the watch and cursed. We had about four minutes before the bus to Nasuada's house and the next one was half an hour later.

"We're leaving" Saphira commanded looking for her bag "Now"

Of course Saphira already had her driving licence (I somehow couldn't bring myself to get one) but our car was currently in repair after a very nasty incident with two bunnies. Did I mention how I hated when our car was in repair? It was like chasing the time – you never had enough of it and you were always late. You couldn't even eat breakfast in peace.

"But my pancakes…" I tried to argue. "It wouldn't really make a difference if we were a few minutes late."

"That's what you said two days ago" Saphira reminded me. "And the time before that. And…"

"Okay, okay" I put my hands up in defeat. "But then I didn't have pancakes with chocolate to eat"

But Saphira was staunch.

"It's not my fault you didn't get up earlier. And we really don't have time. If you don't stand up now, I'll leave without you" she threatened.

I gave my pancakes last sad look.

"Screw it" I thought.

And then, not thinking much about it, I grabbed the plate and ran after Saphira.


	2. Chapter 2

**I didn't have much free time recently but I've managed to write something for you (and this chapter is a little shorter than the last one) since you're so fantastic! Thanks for all the reviews! ;D**

 **Crunchie cookie girl**

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When we got to Nasuada's house, we still had one more minute left, so I really didn't get why Saphira was making such a big fuss about being late. However, I decided to stay silent. It was no point in raising an argument on the subject.

I glanced at the house. It was really huge, rich and tasteful, but no matter how many times I've been there, I always felt slightly out of place. I certainly wasn't jealous of Nasuada. Her dad was a rich businessman, so she could get almost everything she wanted, including her own car. The bad side was that her dad – a real workaholic – never had time for her, even when she was a young girl. Nasuada's mom died when she was only five, so she didn't have anyone. Since I couldn't stop complaining about my dad always being somewhere abroad, at least I had my mom. I couldn't imagine life with no parents at all.

But even though I didn't like this place, I had to admit that Nasuada's house was just perfect for the gang meetings. Our flat – which definitely appealed more to me – was far too small.

Nasuada opened the door.

"You're not late" she stated, raising her eyebrows in amusement.

"Oh, really" Saphira argued. "It's not like we're always late."

"No" Nasuada laughed. "Only ninety nine percent of time"

"Well, that's not my fault" my sister concluded, stepping in the house.

Nasuada closed the door behind us and led us through the corridor to the living room which was about the size of our whole flat. It had two coaches, an armchair and a coffee table. There was a TV set, something near two hundred books and many pictures and photos on the wall. On the floor laid a big colourful Persian rug.

The rest of the gang was already there. Murtagh and Thorn were sitting on the couch, completely absorbed in one of the video games and a very heated argument, which main subject, as far as I understood, was cheating. Murtagh was one of first people Saphira and I met in the new school, however, he had changed so much since then. I could hardly recognise the boy who asked to borrow a pencil on the first day of school. There was probably only one thing which didn't change about him and it was the choice of colours. He always had something of an emo guy in him – from head to toe in black. Most of Thorn's clothes were also black, but he didn't seem to hate other colours so much (after all, he had dyed his hair red). They were a great pair of best friends.

The last person was Angela, currently sitting on the coach and reading some book. She was… well, definitely very eccentric. Just like Murtagh and Thorn, she preferred dark colours, only occasionaly wearing something more cheerful. It was because she believed that dark colours help to regain peace. I wasn't really sure of this myself, since when she was wearing her dark green blouse, I felt the need to murder her on the spot (yes, it was that awful). Maybe it doesn't sound unusual, but it was mainly her hair that drew everyone's attention. The shortest description possible? It always looked like a bird nest. It may seem kind of stupid, but in fact Angela was very intelligent. Her knowlegde was just... well, not what you would call usual school knowlegde. She knew such a wide range of strange facts, mostly from biology that it was hard to believe, but her marks were rather averege. Although she was better at maths than I was. However... If you thought about it, almost everyone was better at Maths than I was.

"Hey, guys" Saphira yelled, wanting to draw Murtagh's and Thorn's attention away from the game.

They both looked up.

"Oh, hi" Thorn replied, groaning when Murtagh killed one of his soldiers.

"Hi, you're not late" Murtagh greeted us.

"Stop it already, guys!" Saphira demanded. "I will say it one more time. We're not always late!"

"Okay, okay, just joking!" Murtagh put up his hands in surrender.

Apparently Saphira's deathly glare was affecting everyone without exception.

"By the way" Angela chimed in, wanting to somehow make atmosphere a little better. "Did you know that snails..."

"Oh no" This time it was Nasuada who interrupted. "We don't have time for snails right now. We have to plan our trip if you've already forgotten! And you two, stop with this thing"

The last sentence was addressed to Murtagh and Thorn, who right now didn't see anything apart from their game.

I could understand Nasuada. Really. If Angela started talking about different creatures and biology in general, there was no going back. It was almost the same with the whole group. We got distracted very easily.

"Oh, don't destroy all the fun" moaned Murtagh.

"Stop behaving like a child!"

"It's you who tries to take away my childhood!"

Now it was their turn to lead the conversation and they did pretty well. In fact Nasuada and Murtagh argued most of the time. But it was kind of love-hate relationship since nobody believed they really didn't like each other. We could only bet how much time would it take them to get together.

"Guys" Saphira tried to calm them down. "You'll have plenty of opportunities to argue later, but now let's talk about our trip."

She was obviously talking about the vacation trip which was the biggest dream of our gang since the day we met. And it was finally going to come true this year. And in the best location possible because in California. However, I didn't know what else Saphira wanted to plan. We had everything planned long time ago.

"What is it much to talk about?" I asked.

Saphira shot me a death glare.

"For example everything we will be doing there. We can't just sit and play video games for three weeks" she looked pointedly at Murtagh and Thorn.

The former didn't even notice, busy glaring at Nasuada and the latter pretended to look sorry, quite convincingly.

"Well" Angela broke the silence. "I have a better idea. Let's just chill out and see as the things will turn out."

I could do nothing but agree with her in one hundred percent.

"Yes, I hate sticking to the schedule" I supported her.

"Especially school schedule?" Saphira asked, winking.

I snorted. I played truant only two times during the last semester and both was Maths test, so I felt justified.

"Any schedule it will be" said Murtagh, finally having grown bored with glaring at Nasuada. "It will remind us of the school schedule. And we have the fucking vacations!"

Nobody knew what else they should say. Murtagh's words were so real that even Saphira and Nasuada, who definitely would prefer to plan everything in detail, had to agree with them.

"So we're dropping it?" I asked hopefully.

Nasuada sighed with surrender.

"I guess we don't really have a choice"

"Brillant" said Thorn. "So maybe we can watch a movie."

"Yes, yes" added Murtagh immediately. "Nasuada's dad has a great collection of films."

Before I could react in any way, Saphira jumped from her seat and ran to the other side of the room. Turning around, I saw what she had in mind. There was another bookcase but full of films instead of books. And Saphira wanted to choose one to watch now which of course was something I couldn't let her do. I wouldn't stand another romantic comedy.

"Wait!" I shouted.

"Oh, no!" Saphira shouted back "You're so not choosing a film for us!"

In a reply I ran to the bookcase as well and it was when the real squabble began. The rest could only look in amusement and - in Nasuada's case - slight pity. This was definitely the argument of the evening.


	3. Chapter 3

**Hi, my wonderful readers! Yes, I have my summer break already, but I still don't post too often. I'll put it down to natural laziness! :P Than you for all the reviews 3 You're the best, guys!**

 **Crunchie cookie girl**

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When Saphira and I were younger, almost all the vacations looked the same. We hardly ever went anywhere with our parents - dad had to work most of the time and mom just didn't want to go anywhere without him so much - so the trip of the year was the camp.

We went to a different camp almost every year since it gave a variety of places, activities and people as our mom used to say and I guess that she was right. We also had a tradition connected with camps; on the day of our departure mom would always make us our favourite breakfast. It was very nice but there came time when together with Saphira we decided that we were too old. Mom didn't argue although it could be seen that she struggled with the want to preserve things as they were.

So I was pretty surprised, when on day of our trip I came downstairs and saw the breakfast waiting for me on the kitchen table. Both mom and Saphira were already sitting there, sipping coffee.

"I hope you'll like it" mom said, gesturing to the breakfast.

Was it just me or did she sound a little nervous?

I took a closer look at both women sitting in front of me and for the first time it struck me how similar they really are. Although you could see grey strands on mom's hair, it was still visible that her blonde hair was the same colour as Saphira's. They also smiled in the same way and their eyes - in mom's case there were some wrinkles around them, probably from tiredness - were glowing with happiness and energy. I smiled at them.

"It's brilliant, thanks" I told mom, sitting at the opposite side of the table.

She nodded, so did Saphira. Silence fell between us, but the comfortable type, as a result of me eating my breakfast.

"So..." mom was the first to break the silence again. "When are you leaving?"

"Would be half an hour" answered Saphira. "Nasuada promised to take us from the house so we won't have to go by any bus or train with all the luggage."

Half an hour? I nearly choked on my food. I knew that we finally managed to go on this trip but until that moment I didn't realise that it was real and we were so close to leaving. I finally really felt that I have vacations. Because vacations with no interesting trip full of adventures could hardly be called vacations at all.

"Hey, Eragon!" Saphira waved her hand in front of my face.

"What?!" I asked, still too distracted to focus on one thing.

Saphira shook her head.

"No wonder that you are unable to focus on your classes at school."

I tried to look sorry, probably not very convincingly since in fact I didn't feel sorry at all.

"What was the question?"

"Whether you've packed any films for us" she said.

I mentally groaned. Of course I didn't remember about the films and why the hell it was me who was supposed to pack them, not Saphira.

"Why don't you do it?" I asked.

"Do I have to remind you about the bet you've lost?" she smiled evilly while saying this.

I moaned. One more time I will have to listen about this particular bet and I swear I will murder the speaker. Yes, I have a very irritating tendency to lose bets against Saphira – and most of other people as well – but it doesn't mean that she has the right to remind me about each one thousands of times.

"I'll take the films" I said, standing up.

"You'd better hurry up then" Saphira commented. "You know, you have like ten minutes before the rest arrives"

Fuck.

I ran two stairs at the time. Of course the hurry wasn't only because of films, after all I would manage to pick them in ten minutes (that's plenty of time to choose a film), but since I wasn't very organised I left some packing for the last moment. Okay, maybe a little more than some packing. Or maybe even most of packing.

I stormed into the room, grabbing all the clothes which by now must have been lying on my bed for more than a week. Saphira decided to iron them when she started to pack her own things for the trip. Then I considered it completely unnecessary but somehow now it seemed great of her. I put the clothes in the suitcase, not bothering to pay attention to the fact that they were neatly folded. I added a toothbrush and a towel and after a short while also my phone charger. Then I left the room.

Saphira was already waiting in the hall and with a smirk on her face watched my fight with the stairs.

"Come on. They're already waiting."

"For long?" I asked, pulling the suitcase through the last few steps.

Saphira shrugged.

"I guess not."

I nodded and we headed to the doors. Mum was watching from the kitchen, apparently wondering how we will manage on our own.

"Don't worry, mum! We'll be great." I promised her with a smile.

She returned the smile, although not with much enthusiasm.

"Just… behave yourself! And watch out, Eragon, when it comes to girls!"

Great. Now I was only confused. I heard Saphira choking behind my back.

"What?! Mum, I don't plan to get myself a girlfriend!"

"You never know" she said and went on to say goodbye to Saphira.

They hugged, exchanged some quick sentences and then we were finally ready to leave. As soon as we exited the house, we saw a huge silver sports car. After noticing Nasuada in the driver's seat, I figured out that it must have been a present from her dad for some unknown occasion.

"Hi, guys" she said, slightly raising her sunglasses so that they were resting on her head. "You can put all the luggage in the back. The rest is already inside."

Saphira eyed the car carefully. And then she announced:

"I'm sitting in the front"

"What? No!" I shouted as soon as I realised what that meant. "I also want to sit in the front"

"Sorry, little brother. Too late" she opened the car door and sat next to Nasuada looking everything _but_ sorry.

I sighed and took both mine and Saphira's suitcases to the back of the car and then opened the door behind Saphira's expecting the worst as I peeked inside. The first thing I saw was Murtagh's grin.

"Hey, Eragon, enjoying yourself already?"

"Yes, can't you see?! I'm the happiest person in the world!" I replied sarcastically.

"No sarcasm, please" Murtagh commented. "Now, get your ass in the car so we can finally leave"

I glanced at the peaceful world outside the car for the last time and then took a seat. Or rather tried, because I found myself squished between Murtagh and the door in a position which I would not dare to call comfortable. Next to us was also Thorn and right now he and Murtagh were laughing over some stupid video on YouTube. There was also Angela, in a new top (or at least one I haven't seen before) which unfortunately was in a really awful shade of brown.

It was going to be a long journey. I only hoped Saphira was doing better. I glanced at the girls in the front through a hole between Saphira's seat and the window. They were gossiping about something, looking really relaxed and comfortable. And it also caught my eye that their part of the car looked a lot of cleaner.

During my little observations Nasuada managed to get out of the town, so now we could drive faster which she immediately took advantage of. We were passing some billboards, advertising mostly chemicals, Apple and new films.

"I would like to see 'The perks of being a wallflower' again!" Nasuada said loudly when Saphira pointed to the billboard with a shirtless figure of Logan Lerman.

Please, girls, he's not even _that_ good-looking.

"Me too" Saphira agreed. "We should have this film somewhere. Of course as long as Eragon packed it. You did, right, brother?"

No. No. No. It was not happening. I did not just forget to pack any films for the vacations.

"I'm afraid we don't have it"

"What?!" Saphira shouted. "Have you gone even more crazy?! How is it possible that you didn't take 'The perks of being a wallflower'? It's one of the best films ever!"

"In fact…" I stopped in the middle of the sentence, not knowing how to break the news.

"Yes?" Saphira asked dangerously quietly.

"I forgot to pack all the films"

There was a heavy silence in the car.

"So I guess we're in for a filmless vacation trip" Murtagh concluded.


End file.
